


From The Smallest Beginnings

by Boydo



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Language, F/M, Give it a read, Maybe You'll Get Hooked, My First Work in This Fandom, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-10 20:08:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13508871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boydo/pseuds/Boydo
Summary: Everything starts small and grows from there. It only has to be something small to change everything and not necessarily for the better. What if somebody answers a call, what could possibly change if that happened? Come and find out.





	1. Give Me A Sign

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for clicking on my story, I hope you all enjoy my first foray into the Wonderful World of Writing. To anyone reading this trying to work out whether or not to read on, give it a chance. If you love it you can subscribe for more and if you hate it you can flame me as much as you want in the comments.  
> Now for the obligatory attempt at humour while I tell everyone I don't own stranger things or make money from this.  
> Boydo: Hey, anyone want to pay me for this fanfiction.  
> Literaly everyone else: No, you'd have to pay us to read it.  
> Boydo: Oh well, I guess I don't make any money from this and haven't broken any plagurism laws  
> Literaly everyone else: No, you get to stay a broke ass student. Also stop with the self aware humor I/We/They don't want to be associated with this. It's as funny as... shit, can't think of anything less funny to compare it to. Congratulations you win the award for worst sense of humor 2018. You don't actually own that trophy though just like you don't own stranger things.  
> Boydo: Wow, they like me. They even gave me an award. Maybe next I'll get the one for not knowing how to end a bad joke.  
> Literaly everyone else: .... shut up.  
> Boydo: Ok, geez. Enjoy the chapter.

The rain poured through the canopy above onto the dark leaf covered floor, collecting into puddles which splashed loudly as she ran through them as fast as she could. Away from them, the bad men who had been at Mike’s house. She was so scared, her heart pounding and legs aching from the exertion; looking for somewhere, anywhere to hide from them before they caught her and took her back to the lab. After what felt like hours but was just a few short terror filled minutes she caught sight of the black plastic of a pipe. Small and uncomfortable but because of her abuse at the hands of the lab, she was smaller, just small enough to crawl into the dark recesses of the miraculous hiding place.

After a few short minutes of baited breath she heard the shouts of the lab’s soldiers as they passed her hiding place. It didn’t take long for them to pass by and El let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding for what felt like hours. Now she felt relatively safe hidden in the back of her pipe in the woods she had time to think. Where could she go? The only place she knew was Mike’s house but the bad men were there. Should she just stay here, hidden in this pipe?

In the silence El made a decision, she was stuck in this pipe otherwise she’d get caught but she had one other place she could go. El peeled off her sock and wrapped it tightly around her head as a makeshift blindfold. In the void she could ignore the bad men, she could ignore the distant shouts of her pursuers and in the void. She might see Mike. She didn’t notice the cold of the bitter wind whistling through the pipe. She was already so numb from cold she couldn’t feel much. A bead of blood began to form on her face unnoticed as she slipped into the void.

* * *

 Perspective shift - Mike

* * *

 

As the Department of Energy started shouting and running from the house he mentally screamed at himself. How could he have been so stupid. He’d as good as told them El was there, the one thing they were searching for and he presented it to them on a fucking platter. As he sat in a state of shock and anger on the chair in his living room he suddenly realised with a mixture of joy and anguish, He’d seen El. She hadn’t just disappeared, she had survived the monster and had come back to find him and he had just inadvertently set the Department of Energy on her.

He heard his parents coming back from the door after they’d tried to find out what had got the Department of Energy goons to move so quickly. Realising that he didn’t want to speak to his parents at the moment Mike snuck out of the living room before his parents entered it again and slipped down into the basement. Upon entering the basement, he was greeted by the bittersweet sight of the blanket fort. He could almost see El there sitting in the fort, safe, not being chased by the Department of Energy goons because of his stupid staring. But she wasn’t, she was on the run from the Department of Energy’s men and it was all his fault he thought in anguish.

He lay down in the small but cosy blanket fort wishing he had El here with him, safe and warm away from the bitter cold night and pouring rain outside. But then the Department of Energy had almost certainly bugged the house so there was no way it was going to be safe to bring El back home again. He just wished there was an easy solution to all of this shit. Why did the department of energy have to be such assholes? How could they have been so cruel to El; do they have a scrap of human decency between them all?

Mike realised that this was the first time since it had all happened that he’d been alone with just his thoughts for company. The last few days began to flash through his mind. Getting chased by the Department of Energy in their vans, being found by The Chief, El finding Will in the upside-down. After that it had all gone to shit. The Chief and Mrs Byers had gone to find will, Nancy and Jonathan had gone to do who knows what and then the Department of Energy had appeared. El had saved the party from them first and then the Demogorgon had happened. Mike vividly remembered the strange feeling of being unable to move, held in place by an invisible force as El destroyed the Demogorgon and then vanished. Mike’s emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

Suddenly Mike had an idea. The thought wasn’t accompanied by any emotions like hope or excitement. As he had the idea he felt an explosion of sadness, as if the only thing he could do was feel just slightly closer to her. El used her powers to talk to will, to see will. Maybe if he used his supercom she would hear him, just maybe she would hear him.

Mike picked up the supercom and sat back down inside the blanket fort and tried to convince himself half-heartedly that his idea would work, it wasn’t amazing but it was the best he had, he needed to try at least. Mike tuned his supercom onto an empty frequency and began to talk.

* * *

Perspective shift- El

* * *

 

She saw Mike sitting up in the blanket fort looking exhausted, how much had he slept recently? Mike moved to pick up his radio then sat back down in the blanket fort and stared at the radio intently for a bit. In a rush of movement he suddenly pulled up the antenna of his radio and twisted the little dial on the front until it made a soft crackling sound. She saw him take a deep breath and then he began to talk.

“El, I don’t know if you can hear me but,” he stopped and took another breath, “god this is so stupid. If you’re there and can hear me. I hope you’re alright. I saw the Department of Energy goons chasing you and I’m so sorry.” He stopped talking for a short while looking as if he was trying to hold back tears. Then in a shakier voice, “I shouldn’t have just stared at you, I was so stupid.” Then in a softer voice, so quiet she had to lean in closer to hear him. “If you’re alright, I need to know. If you can actually hear me then please, just give me a sign that you’re safe and the Department of Energy didn’t catch you again. El just please if you’re there, give me a sign.”

Mike then put the radio down and turned the little dial again and the soft crackling sound disappeared. He just sat there looking so sad and said angrily, “It’s not as if she can hear me! Why the fuck did I even think this could work.” Mike then lay down, deep in thought just lying there.

El stared sadly at Mike, she didn’t know what to do. She was safe at least for now, but how could she tell him that. She wished she knew what to do, and let out an irritated sigh. Almost instantly Mike’s head whipped around to look at his radio with a strange combination of wonder and confusion on his face. After a moment Mike lay back down again and let out a short laugh without any happiness and exclaimed to the air “I must be sleep deprived, it’s been what? Nearly two days now? And I’m hearing voices. For fucks sake wheeler get a grip!”

El’s eyes went wide. Mike had heard something from the radio at the same time she’d made a noise. With barely contained excitement she tentatively whispered “Mike.” Just one word and not very loud but that's when it happened.

Mike looked at his radio a look of pure joy in his eyes as he grabbed his radio and held it to his face, excitedly whispering, “El? Is it really you? Can you hear me? Please talk to me!”

“I’m here, I escaped the bad men” El choked out

Mike began to hyperventilate muttering over and over again “Oh my god, I can’t believe it worked. I can’t believe it fucking worked” until El spoke.

“Mike, I can hear you. I’m ok. Promise.” El said

Mike stopped hyperventilating and took a breath to steady himself and looked thoughtful for a moment. After a while of what looked like intense thought he said “now you’ve escaped, we need to find you somewhere to stay, a new home. You can’t just stay in the forest forever, Will’s mom knows about you, maybe you could stay with them. If you stayed at will’s that would mean I could see you. What do you think?” a few seconds passed in silence and Mike said “El? You still there?”

El finally replied, “Home?” she asked questioningly.

“Yea, a new home” mike replied eagerly “I’ll go and talk to Will’s mom tomorrow after school if you want.”

El only replied with a soft “Please.”

Mike quickly said “I’m at school until three so I can talk to Mrs Byers after then. I should be back at about four but I’ll try and talk to you at four thirty ok. I’m so happy I gave you the watch back now, don’t forget. I’ll tell you if everything goes well at four thirty so zero, four, three, zero. I need some sleep right now but hopefully we can see each other tomorrow. Goodnight El”

“Goodnight Mike” El said softly before he switched off his radio and looked to almost pass out which worried El for a moment until she heard a soft snore come from him. After she sat and just watched him sleep for a few minutes, a look of calm spreading over his features she came back out of the void and was slightly disorientated for a moment after she took the sock from her head looking around the dark tube then quickly wiping away the blood that had leaked from her nose during her conversation and smiled as she whispered to herself, “New home.”

* * *

Perspective shift-Mike

* * *

Mike was rudely awoken by his mom shaking him awake while saying “Honestly Michael you’ll be late if you don’t get up now.” Then in a softer voice, “I know it was difficult last week, will disappearing but he’s back now and I’m sure he wouldn’t want your education disrupted. Remember, If you want to talk about anything I’m always here.”

The school day passed in a blur. He managed to rush into class just before the bell rung, sweaty and out of breath. He was thankful that troy had managed to worm his way out of school today, he wasn’t in any mood to deal with the dickhead. Throughout lunch Mike kept zoning out and ignoring what his friends were saying. He just spent most of the time admiring the clean up job the Department of Energy had pulled off and how stupid people were to buy the stupid excuse that they’d created. Honestly who would believe that a supposed ‘gas leak’ in the science lab caused the fire alarms to go off and alert the emergency services. The worst parts of the day were undoubtedly the parts of the day where people came up to the party and asked where will had run away to. The first time this had happened, the three had spent a few moments wondering what they could say without breaking the contracts the Department of Energy had made them sign and then at the same time came out with three different answers all as implausible as each other. The one thing his mind was focussed on the whole day was El, in a few short hours he might be able to see her.

As the final bell rang out he jammed his stuff in his locker as he rushed past and continued on quickly. “I’ve got to go guys!” He shouted at Lucas and Dustin as he rushed out of the doors, hopped on his bike and began furiously pedalling his bike in the direction of the Byers household. As Mike pedalled, he started trying to find something to say to Mrs Byers when he arrived, he couldn’t just walk up and say, “do you remember that strange girl who helped us find will. She kind of got trapped in the same place Will got taken to, escaped and then had to run away from the Department of Energy’s goons and needs somewhere to stay. Could she stay at your house?” God, he even felt stupid just thinking about it so he had to think of something before he arrived.

Mike rolled into the driveway of the Byers household and truly the devastation the past week had wrought upon the place. The most prominent change to the house since he had last paid any attention was the partially boarded up hole in the wall. As he walked up to the house, he started to feel worse and worse about his idea. After looking at the house, the Byers probably had enough problems of their own without having to help hide El from the Department of Energy which was worryingly close to the house now that he thought about it. As the little voice in the back of his head tried to talk him out of trying this, a larger part of his mind forcefully reminded him that he was doing this for El. She was stuck alone in the woods. Mike steeled himself, walked up to the door and knocked.

Mike heard a shout of “coming.” sound from inside the house a few moments before an exhausted looking yet happy Mrs Byers appeared in the doorway. “Sorry, Will isn’t going to be out of hospital for at least a few days yet, he’s recovering quickly though. If you want I can call your mom when he’s out so you can come see him again” she said.

“Actually Mrs Byers, I came to speak to you about something.” He waited for a moment and took a deep breath before the words started to pour out of his mouth. Mike began telling her all about what had happened after she and the chief had left the school to go save will. The Department of Energy turning up, Brenner being attacked by the Demogorgon and finally El destroying the Demogorgon and disappearing.

After hearing this Mrs Byers softly said “come inside and we can talk more, it sounds like you’re not done with what you’re trying to tell me. If you stay out here too much longer you’ll catch a cold.”

When mike sat down on the miraculously intact sofa within the small house which looked as if a bomb had gone off inside, he could even see bear trap down the corridor as he walked in and he wondered just what had happened here. Mike decided it was best to leave the questions about the state of the house until after he’d done what he came here to do. Mrs byers sat down on the sofa and gestured for him to continue. Mike assented and then began to talk again.

“when I said El had disappeared along with the Demogorgon, she did disappear in the classroom but she came back. I saw her in the window yesterday when the Department of Energy people were asking me about where she was and I did the most stupid thing probably ever. I saw her and I just starred at her, I ignored everything the interrogators were saying and just stared.” It was at this point Mike had to hold back a sob, knowing that El had escaped from them didn’t make him feel any less guilty. “The interrogators turned around to see what I was staring at and they saw her. The saw her and they all rushed to chase her and it was all my fault.” Mike said as Mrs Byers moved closer and wrapped him in a comforting hug. “Now that you’ve heard this I have something very important to ask you because. El escaped and needs somewhere to go. I was wondering if she could stay with you.” Mike started to trip over his words in his haste to get them out, “She won’t be any trouble, I promise…” Mrs Byers cut him off before he could gush anymore, she knew that if he started gushing he wouldn’t stop for a while.

“Of course she can, anything I can do for the girl who helped me find my boy.” She said and a questioning look came over her face as she asked “wait, how do you know where she is. You said she was running from the lab’s people and you obviously weren’t with her but you said she promises she won’t be any trouble so how did you talk to her?”

Mike replied quickly, “We once got her to try and find will using the new radio in the AV club at school and she could use it so we could hear Will’s voice. She did kind of the same thing. She spoke to me through the radio. This morning I tried to speak to her through my supercom, I didn’t think anything would actually happen I just wanted to feel like I was doing something but she spoke. I heard her through the supercom and she said she had escaped and was safe for now. I realised I couldn’t bring her back to my house to hide again because the Department of Energy people have probably put listening devices in my house because it’s the first place they’d expect El to come back to but I thought that since you already knew about her, you might be able to help hide her.”

“Bring her over when you can, make sure you’re discrete. We don’t want the lab knowing she’s here.” Mrs Byers said.

“What time is it? I need to be back a before four thirty.” Mike said.

“Don’t worry, it’s only half three” Mrs Byers replied.

“Brilliant, Thank you Mrs Byers. Can I bring her here around six? It’s dark then” Mike said

“That’s a good idea I’ll be waiting.” she said.

After mike heard this he promptly jumped off the couch and rushed towards the door, picked up his bike and furiously began pedalling away back home. He knew he didn’t need to, he knew that El wasn’t going to be listening to him until four thirty but he didn’t care.

* * *

Perspective shift-El

* * *

El felt like she had been waiting for years, the numbers on the wristwatch were changing far to slowly to be real as the time crept by. Now that El was less tired, the pipe was becoming less and less comfortable. A deep ache started to form in her back growing more and more uncomfortable and no matter how much she shifted around, she couldn’t seem to find a more comfortable way to sit. El began to get restless waiting for zero, four, three, zero. She looked at the watch again and yet again got another disappointing display, zero, three, zero, zero. She didn’t know how she was going to handle the rest of the wait.

El wanted to go outside to get rid of the ache in her back, she knew that it would be safer to stay in the pipe until it was time to speak to Mike again but it was getting harder to resist the longer she sat in the dark recesses of the pipe.

As El was about to leave the pipe out of sheer boredom she heard a noise, soft but shattering the silence nonetheless. The sound of twigs cracking underfoot. El suddenly stopped moving, terror flooding her body. As time passed the soft sound of twigs breaking came closer. The sound of laughter suddenly broke out, a deep rolling sound. “you’re right man” the unknown person said.

“Still, why do we have to patrol this fucking forest. Its cold and it’s not like anyone’s going to find her, still I didn’t get what they said about her being dangerous till I saw that shit at the diner. It was fucking freaky. After that I kinda don’t want to find her.” A different voice replied.

“Nah man, you think that’s freaky but you weren’t in the car chase. It was a couple of vans against some midgets on bikes but swear to god it was the most intense shit I’ve done in years, If I’d been a second later when we scrambled I would’ve died.” The first person replied, “crushed in that flipped van. A whole van full of people flipped through the air. I still get chills remembering that.”

El was scared, it was the bad men. They were searching for her. They were right there. Her chest began to feel tighter and her breaths started to get harder. She knew they were nearby but she didn’t know quite where they were. El hoped beyond everything else that she was far enough back in the pipe so they couldn’t see her.

El looked at her wrist and realised with a start that it was almost zero, four, three, zero, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The crunch of twigs stopped along with the voices. A sudden silence fell over the forest. Without warning everything got bright and she heard a loud shout of “Shit!” from one of the two bad men. A moment later still in slight shock from the bright light she heard the same voice, much quieter now and evidently scared say “Please don’t hurt us, we’re putting our guns down. Just please don’t hurt us.” El hadn’t expected this. She sat in stunned silence for a few seconds before she heard the same voice again, she still couldn’t see them because of the bright light being shone down the pipe but he said in a shaky voice “I’m Jordan, this is my friend Evan. We don’t want to hurt you. Do you have something you prefer to be called rather than your number?”, then whispered to his friend “this is not what I signed up for, this shit is heavy”.

El finally composed herself enough to give some sort of answer. She pointed to herself and said “El” slowly and looked at her watch again. The numbers were switching closer and closer to the time she needed to talk to Mike. Still confused by the recent events El said “You’re bad men?”, not understanding what was happening.

She heard the other voice now, “Damn, I knew the lab did some bad shit but this is another level of messed up. No, we’re not bad men or at least I don’t think we are. I feel terrible right now, you must be thirsty. I’m going to take my canteen from my bag ok, then you can have something to drink.”

El saw something move behind the bright light and said “Can’t see, too bright”. And one of the two men turned off the light and for the first time she could see them properly. They were both big but they didn’t look very old. Much younger than the man with the big hat, she thought he was called chief but also much older than Mike. Both of them had brown shaved hair like hers and she said suddenly, “what you called?”

A look of confusion crossed the pair’s faces for a moment until one of them pointed at himself and said Jordan and then pointed at his friend and said Evan. Then held out a strange thing with a kind of dial on the top and said after a moment “this is my canteen, it has water inside”. A moment later the pair of them jumped back as El began to pull the canteen towards her with her powers. The pair of them calmed down quickly but still looked on edge. After grabbing the canteen out of the air, El unscrewed the dial like thing on the top and took a few long gulps of the cool water.

“thank you” El said as she levitated the canteen back towards Jordan as she looked at her watch. A moment later the canteen suddenly dropped making the pair of men jump again as she looked aghast at the watch. zero, four, three, zero had passed and quickly she said “quiet” to the two confused and shocked men as she took her sock back off and wrapped it around her head again.

A moment later she was standing in the void, she saw Mike with a worried look on his face voice slowly getting louder and louder as he kept repeating “El, are you there, please respond”. El felt terrible, she had made Mike worried.

As fast as she could El said loudly “here, sorry for being late”

A look of relief washed over Mike’s face as he said “Thank god El, I was getting worried. I’ve got great news. Will’s mom said you can stay with her, Where are you so I can find you when it gets dark so I can take you to their house without the Department of Energy people finding you.”

El said “People found me.”

Instantly Mike’s face looked scared and he began to worriedly say “Are you alright, please tell me they haven’t hurt you. I’m coming, I’ll try and save you. Tell me where you are.”

Before Mike could continue El cut him off by saying. “they say not bad men. They give water”

After hearing this mike’s face relaxed from it’s worried state. “As long as you’re safe. It gets dark at about six. So, I’ll come and get you then. Where are you, so I can find you.”

El replied quickly with “In pipe in forest.” Hoping he could find her from that.

Mike looked deep in thought for a moment but then shook his head and said “do you know anything more?” His face suddenly lit up and he said “how about you ask the people who found you.”

El thought for a moment and then said “ok. Back soon.” As she quickly left the void and took the sock off unconsciously wiping the blood from her nose. After doing this she noticed the two men who hadn’t moved since she’d gone into the void who both had bemused expressions on their faces. It took them a moment to respond after she said “where is this?”

It was Evan who answered with a very helpful “I’d say we’re about a mile south of the lab, almost a straight line from here to the lab, that good enough?” he said with a small smile.

“Thank you” El said as she put the sock back around her eyes and went back to the void. A moment later she’d found mike and said “back, Evan said. About a mile south of the lab, almost a straight line from here to the lab, That good enough?”

Mike looking slightly shocked replied with “That’s brilliant El, I can find you now. I’ve never heard you say so much at once before, that was brilliant. Stay where you are until I come and get you later. I’ll come and get you at six because it’s dark then so remember zero, six, zero, zero.”

“zero, six, zero, zero” El repeated back to him.

“I’ve got to go now El, my mom’s calling me for lunch but I’ll see you later.” Mike said as he turned the dial and the radio off.

As El took the sock off her head for a second time she heard Jordan say in a confused voice “Ok, what just happened there?”

“Spoke to Mike” El said nonchalantly. “Wait, spoke to Mike. You mean that you can talk to him using your powers or whatever they are. Also, why did you need to know where we are right now?” Jordan said

“Mike taking me home” El said.

“Mike as in Mike Wheeler right” said Evan.

“Yes” said El.

“He can’t take you back to the Wheeler’s place, it’s under surveillance around the clock. If you go back there you’ll be caught immediately.” Evan said in a worried voice

“No, new home” El said in an insistent tone trying not to let on how scared she was that the bad men were watching Mike’s house.

“Ok, am I right in thinking he’s going to be picking you up after dark and taking you to whatever place he thinks is safe?” said Jordan.

“zero, six, zero, zero” El said

“Six, after dark. At least he’s got some common sense. Me and Evan need to go now so the higher ups don’t get suspicious about what we were doing on patrol but I for one am going to try and do something to help. I’m going to do my best to keep people away from here around six. It might not work, I might even get fired for this but fuck it. If this is what the lab does, weird ass experiments on little girls then I’m not sure I want to work there anyway.” Jordan said passionately.

A moment later Evan said “If Jordan’s going to try and help then I’m in too. We’ll do our best but good luck. You might need it.” After saying this Evan stood up, offered a hand to Jordan to help him up and the two of them walked away.

El didn’t know how she was going to last the many hours ahead of her, she had barely managed the shorter amount of time waiting to speak to Mike. She was bored already but after being found by Jordan and Evan she was far to scared of going outside to risk it.

The hours slid by painfully slowly and every time El was tempted to leave the pipe, stretch her legs and do something she remembered being found by Jordan and Evan. What if they had been bad men and had taken her back to the lab, what if more bad men came past when they were… what did Jordan call it, patrolling she thought. She didn’t want to be caught by any bad men who were patrolling. As she waited the sky outside began to slowly darken signalling the time Mike would get her was closer.

* * *

Perspective shift-Mike

* * *

After talking to El, Mike realised one major flaw with his plan. How was he going to get out of the house at around six? His mom would never let it happen especially after Will going missing. She was already watching him closely because of how late he’d come home from school. His only hope he realised was Nancy. The thought of his sister being his only option was a scary thought, he knew they’d said no secrets on that night but he was still worried. What if his sister didn’t think he should go out late, what if she thought he should just leave El in the forest this time and wouldn’t let him leave.

Mike knocked on the door, three short taps. “come in Mike” Nancy said from somewhere inside her room.

“How did you know it was me?” Mike asked as he closed the door to her room.

“Mom doesn’t knock” She replied with a short laugh. “Anyway, what do you want?” she said in a kind voice.

After a deep breath to steady himself, “I have something kind of huge going on and I need your help.” he said and then stood waiting for a response but all he got was a hand gesture for him to continue. “ok, he said. You remember El right. She’s not gone, she’s hiding in the woods and needs my help. I need to get out of the house a bit before six without mom noticing and take her somewhere safer to stay then come back also without mom noticing and the only way I can think of getting out of the house and back in again is your window.” He said in a rush.

“I have a lot of questions right now so let’s start easy. How did you come up with my window as your perfect way out of the house?” she asked.

“That’s an easy one, I saw Steve climb in through it last week” he said with a small laugh.

Nancy quickly asked the next question with a small blush on her face, “You said you had a safer place to take El, where is it. You’d better not be thinking of hiding her in the basement again because that just will not work with mom’s new ever vigilant mode.”

“It’s not the basement again and I can’t tell you. It’s not so safe if people know where she’s going to be.” He said.

“Mike. No secrets. We promised.” Nancy said, an irritated tone in her voice that told Mike to just tell her or risk consequences.

“The Byers’” he said quietly

“That could work, Joyce knows about El and their house is out of the way in the woods. You’d better have asked Joyce about this though.” She said finishing with a stern tone.

“Of course I have, I’m not stupid.” He replied snappily.

Quickly changing the topic, Nancy said “Come in here when you’re ready to go and I’ll cover for you. be as quick as you can though. I’m not sure how long I can stall mom if she’s insistent.”

“Thanks Nance, I’ll be back later” He said

It was about an hour later when Mike knocked on Nancy’s door once more and walked in holding a torch, a small map and wearing two jackets, both black and said to Nancy “It’s time, I’ll try and be quick but I can’t promise anything.”

“Good luck” was all that Nancy said as she walked over to her window and opened it for him.

Mike carefully climbed out of the window trying to make as little noise as possible, it was one thing Steve climbing through a window but Mike was no Steve and he found it a lot harder than it had looked when he saw it. Mike let out a quiet sigh of relief when his feet finally touched the ground and gave a wave up to Nancy who closed her window, sure that he had got down safely.

Mike climbed on his bike and began pedalling fast, getting out of the house had eaten into the little time he had to get to the forest. He glanced at his watch, he had to squint at the small hands as he’d given his digital watch to El. It was ten to six already, he had to hurry. Not much time passed before he turned off into the forest heading towards the point he had marked on a small map of Hawkins while he was getting ready to leave. Mike began to feel worried, he’d realised just how close to the Department of Energy he was going to have to get in order to collect El while he was marking on the map. He had never been particularly religious but right now he was praying to every god he could think of and just hoping that nobody would catch him.

It was nearly six and the light was gone but even so, a mile had started to feel like a very short distance. Thanks to his furious cycling he had arrived at the area he’d marked on the map quickly. Mike got off his bike and held his torch out but before he turned it on he saw a terrifying sight. The Department of Energy windows, glowing with a soft yellow light in the distance but seeming to creep closer the longer he stared at them. Snapping himself out of his daze he turned on the torch and pointed it at his wrist, it was just past six. Quickly he began pointing the beam around him, looking for anything that might indicate a pipe and after a minute of looking he glimpsed the opening to a small pipe, a bit less than a metre across. Mike hurried over to the pipe pointed his torch down it. He felt a smile spread across his features as he saw El. She was covered in dirt and looked exhausted but she was there.

“Mike?” El said

“I’m here El, let’s go.” Mike said.

As El climbed out of the pipe he handed her one of the jackets he’d been wearing and said “put this on and follow me, the bike’s this way.”

When he reached the bike, Mike turned off the bright white light of his torch and switched on the small lamp on the front of his bike then gestured for El to get on the back. The moment she’d wrapped her arms around his waist Mike began pedalling as fast as he dared in the direction of the Byers’ house praying that nobody would see his light and focusing intently on the ground in front of his tyres making sure he wouldn’t tip the bike over or puncture a tyre. The minutes bled past with agonising slowness and in absolute silence except for the clank of the bike chain and the snap of twigs as they rode over them.

After a nerve wracking and treacherous ride Mike sighed in relief as he saw the lights of the Byers’ house come into view as he quickly stopped by the entrance while El got off then propped his bike up against the wall then knocked on the door.

“Come in” Mrs Byers said almost immediately from almost directly behind the door as she opened it and ushered the pair of them inside. “I was getting worried something had happened, It’s about twenty five past already. Come in and have a drink, you must both be cold.”

“Thank you Mrs Byers but I’ve got to go, I need to get back as soon as possible. My mom doesn’t know I’ve left and I’m trying to get back soon enough to keep it that way. Can I come back after school tomorrow?” Mike asked. He then turned to El and said, “If I’m allowed back tomorrow is there anything you want me to bring you?”

“Egos?” was her response

“Sure” Mike said then turned to Mrs Byers who was busy making a hot chocolate for El.

“Come around whenever you want Mike” Mrs Byers said with a small laugh

“Thank you Mrs Byers. I’ve got to go now” said Mike. He then hurried back to the door, grabbed his bike from where he’d left it and pedalled away as a furious pace full of dread because he’d been gone so long.

When Mike got to his road his dread turned into fear as he saw his mom sitting in the same room he’d seen El from looking through the window with a furious face. She saw him her eyes followed him to the door as he put his bike down realising that if he went around and put his bike at the back door the extra time would only make his mom angrier. Mike gingerly raised his hand, twisted the door knob, walked in and heard the sound of his mother’s voice call out with a quiet fury. “Michael Wheeler, come in here”.


	2. What Do I Not Know?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alcohol warning - there's alcohol in the chapter. Do I have to warn for that? Anyway there's alcohol, and that's the most useful this summary's going to get. Why not read the chapter and find out what it's all about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back. I know it's been a while since I last updated, I'll try and do better this time. I hope you enjoy the chapter, it starts right where the last one left off. without further ado, please enjoy the chapter. Also thank you for the kudos and comment, they really helped write this.

Mike walked through the door and sat down under the furious gaze of his mom. He was finding it harder to swallow now. What the fuck could he say to get out of this one. He was royally screwed he decided.

“Explain” came his mother’s voice laced with a subtle fury.

Mike knew he couldn’t tell her what he had actually been doing that night, her first reaction would probably be to call the government goons and take El back to the lab. He tried to think of any semi-plausible excuse but none came. He couldn’t just say he was at one of the party’s houses because the first thing that would happen is his mom would call them and his inevitable punishment would be even worse as a consequence. The only parent who would think to cover for him would be Mrs Byers and he couldn’t come up with any reason to be visiting her after dark with Will in hospital still recovering from his time in the upside-down. After long deliberation Mike just muttered “I can’t say” it was about as truthful as he could be without risking El’s safety.

“You. Can’t. Say. You just go running off after dark and you can’t say where you were. What you were doing… Go to your room. You’re grounded.”

Mike wordlessly stood up from the uncomfortable chair he had been perched upon and slowly made his way up the stairs to his room. As he passed Nancy’s door he stopped, he needed to know how Mom had found out. He knocked quietly three times and waited for her to usher him in.

Mike let out a dejected sigh and said “how did she find out Nance”

“I’m sorry Mike, there was nothing I could have done. Mom came in asking where you were almost immediately after you’d left and I tried to stall but she didn’t believe a word.”

“Well I’m grounded indefinitely now so at least I’ll have some time to work out how Mom seemed to know I’d left the house.” He let out an angry sigh and walked out of Nancy’s room. Took the short walk back to his own and after slamming the door louder than he should’ve he flopped down on his bed and just lay there staring at the ceiling trying to work out just how the plan had gone so badly. At least he’d got El to the Byers’, he was thankful for the small mercies at least.  

Then it hit him, if he was grounded he couldn’t visit his friends; It wouldn’t have been that bad but if he couldn’t go and ‘visit his friends’ he couldn’t see El. He felt a strange tug in his chest when he thought about this, it was an uncomfortable feeling he couldn’t place. Mike tried to ignore it but in the dull silence of his room it was impossible to truly take his mind off of it.

* * *

 

Jim Hopper slammed the door to his ruined home; Torn cushions and lightbulbs still lying around the floor but he didn’t care. He passed by his fridge and reached for the door of the small cupboard he rarely opened. He reached in and pulled out an untouched bottle of vodka, he hated the stuff but right now he just needed something to numb his thoughts. As he took a swig of the potent liquid he wondered what would happen if anybody saw him in this state, Chief Hopper, the face of justice in Hawkins trying to get blackout drunk on his own. Whatever anyone would think if they saw him in his current state would be nothing compared to how everyone would react if they found out why he was already a third of the way through a bottle of vodka.

He’d tried to rationalise it to himself at the time. It was Joyce’s kid he was there to save, that’s all he’d focussed on at the time. Then Jim had heard what had happened because of him, what he’d done. The government had stormed the school, countless people had died and the girl was gone. Earlier that day he’d realised just what the government was capable of. After his own experience of winding up at home surrounded by drugs and alcohol then finding the bug. He’d thought back to the start of this mess, Benny. He’d thought back to the kid that’d been seen stealing fries the same day he’d without warning and completely out of the blue for anyone that new him decided life was to much. It hadn’t taken him long to add two and two together and realise he’d as good as handed a small girl over to the people who murdered Benny.

His head started to get fuzzy as the alcohol hit him. She’d trusted him! What the fuck had he done next, he had handed her back to the pieces of shit she had escaped from in the first place. After getting a good look at the room with the gate in and seeing the broken water tank, a sensory deprivation tank he’d put a few more things together. He’d managed to hold off the disgust at himself for a while but it was all hitting him now. They were experimenting on her, she’d managed to escape her jailers and he’d sent her right back.

Jim took another large swig of vodka and grimaced at the acrid taste as he swallowed. The room was starting to swim now, he went to take another swig but missed his mouth and poured some on his shirt; It took him a moment to notice the cold damp patch on his shirt and slurred out “Shit!” at least his thoughts were quieter now he decided. Not quiet enough but more bearable. After taking another large swig, he slammed the now almost empty bottle back on the table and stumbled towards his bed, legs feeling leaden and head floating. He used the wall to brace himself as his body lurched violently to the side, as he flopped limply in to bed he dimly thought about how bad tomorrow morning the next day would be for him. There was no chance he was going to make it to work on time tomorrow he absentmindedly thought as his vision darkened. Moments later the only sounds around were the loud snores emanating from the incredibly drunk chief of police.

* * *

 

Joyce Byers let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding up till now as the sound of a knock on the door broke the otherwise silent night. She quickly ushered the kids inside out of the freezing cold of the night and quickly offered them something hot to drink. She was worried when Mike insisted he rush off as soon as he could because Karen didn’t even know he was here. Joyce didn’t want to know what would happen if she found out about her son had been cycling through the forest after dark although she had to admit that it was adorable the way Mike tried to make sure El was happy.

After Mike had sped off on his bike, Joyce ushered El through to the kitchen and gave her a hot chocolate. A look of wonder flooded the little girl’s face as she excitedly exclaimed “Better than egos!” which made Joyce laugh.

“I’ll make you another one to go with dinner if you want.”

“Egos and better than egos?” El said. As happy as the girl seemed it made Joyce sad that she thought of egos as a meal.

“no egos, I’m going to make you some proper food alright?” she replied with a small laugh as she walked over to the stove and tried to come up with something good for El as a first real meal. Eventually she decided on something easy but which always reminded her of home, mac and cheese. As she busied herself on cooking she started to think of some questions to ask so she could find out more about the wonderful girl who’d saved her boy; There was one problem, El had been stuck in a lab for all but the past week of her life. What could she ask that wouldn’t remind her of that horrible place.

Before she threw out her first tentative question she heard Jonathan’s car pull up to the house and this gave her a brilliant idea. “Have you listened to much music?” she asked with a small smile on her face.

“no, why?”

As Jonathan came through the door she headed his inevitable questions “I’ll explain everything in a minute but first, go and put on one of your mixtapes.”

With a slightly confused look on his face, Jonathan walked to his room and a few moments later the strum of a guitar could be heard emanating from his room. Joyce would’ve preferred what she thought would be El’s first experience of music to be something other than The Clash but it was what Jonathan liked so she guessed it would have to do. She’d have to corrupt El, in Jonathan’s eyes towards something more… pleasant in her eyes, even so a smile spread across El’s face.

Then Jonathan walked back in said, “so, an explanation?”

Joyce began telling the story, it took longer than she expected and when she finished she had to quickly rush to the stove to take the mac and cheese of the stove and thankful that it wasn’t burnt. After quickly taking a plate from the cabinet she brought a plateful over to El along with the promised hot chocolate.

Joyce saw El look dubiously at the food while sipping her hot chocolate. She eventually took a tentative mouthful of the mac and cheese and her eyes lit up. “do you like it?” Joyce asked.

“Very good” El said happily while nodding along to the music playing in the background.

* * *

 

He hated this so much, He’d been home for a few hours at this point and the uncomfortable feeling in his chest was just getting worse and worse. It didn’t help knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see his friends after school for who knows how long. He let out a long sigh and tried not to get to mad at his mom, she was only trying to keep him safe and he had disappeared off in the dark a week after will had gone missing in basically the same conditions. But she didn’t know what really happened. How would she have reacted if she had found out he was leaving to help the girl the government was looking for and who he’d hidden in the basement for the best part of a week, she would probably flip.

All he could do was hope that he wasn’t going to be grounded for to long, he needed to talk to his friends about what happened and school was definitely not the place. What if someone heard and told the lab people. El would be in danger again if that happened and he had already caused enough shit for her, he didn’t need to make it worse.

Taking a look at his supercom he thought, fuck it; what’s the worst that can happen, it worked last time. Mike picked it up from the floor, turned it on to an empty channel and began to talk.

As Mike talked he got less and less hopeful for an answer. The minutes crawled slowly by as he rambled on and on about how he was grounded now and didn’t know how long for but most importantly how he hoped she was alright. The time went by but the only response was the defiant crackle of static like the universe mocking him for his stupid belief that she would be listening, she was happier now. El didn’t need him to be around anymore. She’d had enough of frogface wheeler.

While a small part of his brain was saying that he was stupid, she just wasn’t trying to talk to him at the moment. That part of his brain was very small and very quiet, next to the loud raving monster of his irrational thoughts. He threw the supercom back to the floor after turning it off, flopping back to his bed, a feeling of defeat flooding him. A few minutes of silent contemplation later he heard the last thing he wanted right now.

The creak of his door’s hinges preceding “Michael, I’m sorry about being so angry earlier. I was just worried about you, you can tell me anything you want. I’m here for you. I know you had a hard time last week but I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

His mom was so infuriating at times, Mike knew she wasn’t there to be helpful, she wanted and expected answers. He felt his mattress depress as his mom sat down and put a hand on his leg before she spoke in what she probably though was a soothing voice, “It’s alright, tell me what’s wrong and I’ll try to help.”

Mike’s anger at his mom prompted him to make a huge mistake, “You wouldn’t understand what happened” he spat back angrily. He realised how much he’d fucked up when he slowly opened his eyes and saw his mom’s face morph into one of both irritation and curiosity but he also got a sense that she’d worked out some small detail which she cared a great deal about.

“Well then Michael, what did happen. Tell me and I’ll try to understand” his mom said with a cold edge in her voice, no longer there to just be supportive but expecting an answer and expecting it fast. This was not something he wanted to deal with. “Fine if you’re not going to speak without prompting. Tell me about the girl the government was asking about.” She said after a few seconds without answer. Long gone was the kind understanding tone his mom had been trying to put on earlier.

“I can’t tell you” he said in a weak voice while trying to stop it from shaking with barely constrained anger, he was not going to sell El out again; especially not on purpose.

 He lay there waiting for his mom’s angry rebuke but it never came, instead he heard her voice with a tone he couldn’t identify, “Michael Wheeler, you are grounded until you tell me everything. Nothing but the truth” she said, stood up and left his room.”

Mike sat there dejectedly, He was grounded permanently. He would never tell his mom about El, he’d never put her in danger like that on purpose. He consoled himself with the fact that him being grounded was better than El being sent back to the lab because he’d told his mom about her. Even if she didn’t want to talk to him again now she was safe with the Byers’ nobody deserved whatever the lab had done to her. Even troy didn’t deserve that and he’d tried to make him kill himself.

* * *

 

She was worried, she had been dismissive of Joyce’s desperation when she couldn’t find her son. That was until she walked into her son’s room and found it empty, coat and torch gone. She went and checked the back door and her fears were confirmed, his bike was gone. Fears began bubbling up through her mind with no filter, what if he’d run away. What if whatever had happened to poor will had happened to him and will was still in hospital after being found. It was dark and she was worried.

She rushed from the back door up to Nancy’s room, she knew Nancy and Mike didn’t get on very well at the moment but it was worth a try. Before she reached the door, she schooled her features into a slightly less concerned, less severe state and pushed the door open. Nancy was lying on her bed with a slightly nervous expression looking intently at the window. “Where’s Mike” she asked bluntly which caused her daughter to whip her head around in surprise as if she hadn’t heard her mother come in.

“I don’t know, have you checked the basement.” Nancy said nervously. This immediately made Karen suspicious, her daughter evidently knew where Mike was so why was she lying to her.

In an angrier tone this time she asked again, “Where’s Mike.”

This time she got the quiet and resigned answer of “I can’t tell you.”

This worried Karren immensely so she quickly shot back hoping to assuage some of her fears, “Has he run away?”

After hearing the answer, she let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “No, He’ll be back soon but I can’t tell you what he’s doing.”

Karren stormed out of the room slamming the door harder than she should have then walked down the stairs deciding to sit in the little room with the large window, clearly visible from the road. She sat down and waited for Mike to return.

After a while she looked at the clock, ten past six. He had to be back reasonably soon she mused, there isn’t anywhere he could go which would take to long to cycle to even in the dark. Still one thing agitated her from the back of her mind, just one phrase. “I can’t tell you.” not I won’t tell you or I don’t want to tell you but can’t. Such a loaded word, so many implications. It was obvious Mike had sworn her to secrecy and at the moment after what had happened with Will and Barbra, it was clear Nancy didn’t want to break his trust.

As she sat in the chair looking out onto the road she began to contemplate what it was Mike would want to keep so secret. He’d gone into the night with his torch and coat. She paused as she thought this and quickly got up. Mind working quickly, she headed up the stairs into Mike’s room and opened his closet, only a vague idea of what she was looking for and saw it. She hadn’t paid it much mind at the time but it wasn’t just a coat that was missing from the closet, not one coat hanger left empty but two. Taking a moment to consider exactly what was missing, he’d taken a torch. Of course he’d taken a torch with him into the night but what about the lamp on his bike, why did he need a torch too.

Karen quickly closed Mike’s closet and headed back downstairs to her chair overlooking the road to wait for his return. She mused over the small bits of information she’d gleaned about what her boy was doing. He’d gone into the night with a torch and two coats without telling her where he was going or that he was going at all while also swearing Nancy to secrecy on whatever it what he was doing. The same question kept reverberating around inside her head. Why? What would make him go to such lengths?

It hit her like a tonne of bricks. It was the same room the government agents had been questioning Mike in, he hadn’t heard anything they’d said except for one thing when Mike had shouted angrily “I’ll never tell you where she is.”, she assumed that ‘she’ was the dangerous girl he government agents had come and talked to her and Ted about. It wasn’t long after that when they suddenly rushed off in a blur of shouts and cars blazing into life, almost like a chase. What if, she mused. What if they’d seen the girl, what if she’d come to see Mike and the agents had seen her first. What one thing would he swear his sister to secrecy for and sneak out of the house in the dark for. What if it was the same thing that he wouldn’t tell government agents. She couldn’t be sure if it was right but it would all make sense if she was. The two coats, one for the girl and one for him. The torch, she wasn’t sure exactly what the torch would be for if she was right but maybe for the girl to see at night wherever she was hiding. It would make sense at least to her if she was right.

As she sat in the chair glancing at the clock she became more and more anxious as the minutes ticked by. Twenty past six came and went, no sign of the dim light of Mike’s bike. Half past came and went in the same manner. Karen’s anxiousness started to morph into irritation, where was he. Nancy had assured her that he was coming back and she believed her. If he was hoping to leave at night and come back without her noticing he must have been planning on a reasonably short trip, he was a smart boy he wouldn’t just leave for hours and expect it to go unnoticed. It had been at least half an hour since he’d left and she wanted him back now, she wanted to find out where he’d been and what he’d been doing.

As the clock ticked over to quarter to seven she saw it, a dimly illuminated patch of ground moving quickly down the road. The patch of light slowed down rapidly from it’s previous feverish pace to a sedate one, almost as if the light didn’t want to reach the house. As if it was afraid of what was inside. As Mike became illuminated by the light streaming out of the window she saw his nervous and slightly panicked face turned towards her. She was furious at this point, that he had disappeared into the night, that he hadn’t told her anything, that it took him so long to get back. She needed answers.

He disappeared from her view in the window and after a pause she heard the sound of the door creak nervously open. Almost without thinking she called out, “Michael Wheeler, come in here.” Through the door to the room tentatively came her son, after all her waiting she wanted to know what was going on. She didn’t want to have to guess anymore. “Explain.” She said tersely, more bluntly than she’d intended to.

His response was not what she wanted to hear, “I can’t say.” Those words were haunting her at this point. While somewhere in the back of her mind she had expected this response, he’d sworn Nancy to secrecy so why would he just up and say it. Karren Wheeler was infuriated by it. She had sat here waiting for him to return, waited for an explanation which he had denied her after all his mysterious actions recently.

“You. Can’t. Say. You just go running off after dark and you can’t say where you were. What you were doing… Go to your room. You’re grounded.” She spat out angrily and watched as he trudged dejectedly up the stairs. She sat back in her chair as she watched his crushed body language as he slowly left and begun to regret her words said in the heat of the moment.

As she sat there in her chair she wondered if a different approach might yield better results in getting the information she so wanted so she could confirm her suspicions. She wanted to apologise for her terseness and that might be the ideal moment for her to find out what he was doing or if not at least just what his relationship with the girl was. If she was right then he was sneaking out to help her so there must be something going on there.

She waited for a while before heading upstairs, giving him time before seeing her as he was probably mad after she grounded him. It was understandable and for her boy almost a certainty. She began to climb the stairs, a plan of what she would say fixed in her head. As she gently opened the door she said “Michael, I’m sorry about being so angry earlier. I was just worried about you, you can tell me anything you want. I’m here for you. I know you had a hard time last week but I’m here if you want to talk about it.” She hoped he would chose to talk to her, she wanted to know what was going on. After a short period of silence, she followed up with “It’s alright, tell me what’s wrong and I’ll try to help.” and honestly she really did, after hearing her son so staunchly trying to protect the girl she wanted to help whatever Ted thought about ‘Russian spies’ I mean really as if Russians would bother with Hawkins.

The one thing she wasn’t prepared for was the vehement tone in which he spat back “You wouldn’t understand what happened.” It confused her slightly, ‘what happened’. That suggested that there was far more she didn’t know than she’d initially assumed but an angry part of her brain responded faster than her more rational side. “Well then Michael, what did happen. Tell me and I’ll try to understand” she said in an overly aggressive manner, internally cringing as she heard it. After a moment of silence, she realised she’d already ruined any chance of a calm and peaceful discussion so she decided to throw a hopeful question out, not necessarily expecting an answer but partly to get it off her chest. “Fine if you’re not going to speak without prompting. Tell me about the girl the government was asking about.” She knew by his silence that she’d struck the pivotal point of what was going on directly.

Her thoughts were only further confirmed when Mike weakly said “I can’t tell you” yet again.

She replied with a combination of anger at Mike’s refusal to tell her what was going on and her for lack of a better word, joy at working out with little doubt what he had been doing. “Michael Wheeler, you are grounded until you tell me everything. Nothing but the truth.” After saying this she left his room deep in thought. Now she had a better idea of what he had been doing she needed to try and get him to trust her enough to tell her from his own mouth, that was going to take some time though.

After heading downstairs, she stopped dead in her tracks. He’d come in wearing a coat, more specifically wearing one coat. If she was right about him taking two coats with him and he’d gone to help the girl that would mean he’d given it to her. He’d brought the torch back with him though, she’d seen it on one of his cupboards sitting on top of some paper which hadn’t been there before. If the torch was back then what did he need it for but most of all, what was the new paper item.

Karen decided to put it out of her mind for now as she heard Ted pulling into the drive in his car, he wouldn’t want to be bothered by this kind of thing especially after having to work late. She walked to the kitchen and placed the casserole from dinner in the oven to heat up again for him, hopefully it’d put him in a better mood after a long day. Food usually helped his mood.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the chapter, if you did please leave Kudos or Comments. They really help speed up writing when you know someone enjoyed the chapter. Till next time, adios.


	3. Time Never Stops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day dawns and things begin to happen, they may not be what you expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, I'm now trying to do roughly a once a week update schedule. I hope you guys are enjoying this story so buckle up for our next instalment.  
> P.S. I still don't own stranger things, the rights are a bit out of my budget.

It had been a relatively normal day at work for Jordan or at least it had been until his patrol. He was still slightly in shock about what had happened. He sat on his bunk contemplating what he had done, the insane risks he had taken which could have gotten him fired. He had found the girl he was patrolling for, decided to side with her against the lab from the inside and managed to divert attention away from the area she was hiding in for about half an hour around six.

That had been risky, convincing the guy on monitor duty to switch shifts with him under the guise of exchanging it for his patrol shift tomorrow. Jordan wasn’t even sure he had gotten away with it without raising any suspicion but it was better than the alternative if he hadn’t switched. He shivered slightly at the thought. It was at about five past six when he had seen it, a bright pinprick in the corner of one of the monitors. It wasn’t very large but it was obvious what it was. He remembered just being able to make out two blurry figures get on a bike and disappear out of view. He wasn’t able to make out any specific features from the monitor but if it had been someone more loyal to the lab it wouldn’t have taken much to track down the boy from his black hair, bike, and association with the girl.

When he had seen that his heart had jumped into his throat, he wished he knew how to edit VHS tapes but he couldn’t remove the minute or so of dangerous material without disposing of the whole tape which would raise far more attention to the matter than he wanted. He just had to hope that nobody would check back on the tape later because that short minute would be enough to mobilise the lab into a full-scale search.

He was broken from his thoughts as Evan walked in. Jordan had already debated on whether or not to tell Evan about what he had done. In the end he had decided against it, Evan had seemed far less sure about turning his back on the lab when they’d found the girl and also, the less people who knew about what he had done, the less chance there was of people looking at that tape.

‘Hey man, what you thinking about?’ Evan asked

‘Just trying to work my head around what the fuck happened today, still can’t quite believe it happened.’

‘I know what you mean, it was just surreal. After thinking about it though, you did the right thing. It just wouldn’t have sat right with me if we had told someone.’

‘It’s good to know you agree with me. At least we know she got away safe otherwise we would have been called to scramble hours ago.’

‘I’m going to try get some sleep now though, I need it after today.’ Evan finished with a short laugh and climbed into his bunk.

Jordan slowly got up and wandered over to the light switch, after turning it off he blindly felt his way back to his bunk and lay down deep in thought. Evan was far more supportive of his actions than he had thought. He had thought Evan was more conflicted but he wasn’t complaining, the more Evan supported his decision the less he had to worry about. Jordan still wasn’t sure about telling him about the monitor room and the tape yet though.

He was glad when sleep finally silenced his thoughts and plunged him into a dreamscape, an escape from the nervous waiting. The constant prayer that nobody would discover what he had done in the building. From that, his manic but quickly forgotten dreams were a welcome escape.

It was all to soon that the alarms went off. His daily routine began yet again in it’s same old dreary manner. Wake up, get dressed and have breakfast; the usual barely palatable porridge staring back at him as a strong coffee finally brought him to his senses. It was a day like any other, all he had to do was remember that he wasn’t doing his patrol today; Shouldn’t be too hard.

* * *

 

El sat up slowly in her bed wiping the sleep out of her eyes. Her bed, he’d done it. Mike had found her a new home. She tentatively got out of bed and walked to the door which had been left ajar. As she walked through the door she heard the voice of Joyce call out from the kitchen, ‘El, you’re up. Do you want some breakfast?’

‘Yes’ she replied while walking over to the small table and sitting down.

‘It’ll be ready soon, I was going to come and wake you soon anyway.’

El didn’t respond this time she just contemplated what had happened the previous evening, all the wonderful new things which Joyce had given her. The food, she had never thought it could taste so good apart from egos. At the lab she had always just had the same tasteless mush, meal after meal or at least when they remembered her meals. The bed in a room that wasn’t locked like she was used to and the music. She knew that the other things Joyce had given her were more permanent, more important to some people but the music gave her a feeling of happiness. It left a warm feeling inside her, it was as if her problems weren’t gone but they weren’t as important; as if they weren’t really there anymore.

She was so lost in thought that Joyce had to tap her shoulder when she put a plate in front of El. ‘Enjoy.’ she said with a smile on her face. El quickly tucked in, she didn’t think she would ever get over how good Joyce’s food was.

After eating for a bit, she stopped and asked a tentative question carefully sounding out every syllable, ‘Hot cho-co-late?’

‘Of course, just give me a minute.’ Joyce replied with a strange look on her face as if she was worried or angry. El couldn’t quite tell what it was but she was nervous that she had annoyed her with her question no matter what she had said.

As El sat worrying and picking at her food Joyce said ‘I have to go to work soon and I’ll be out for a while but Jonathan should be back around four thirty and there’s some food in the fridge that you can eat for lunch. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten anything ready for you but remember, if you see anyone come up to the door who you don’t recognise. Don’t let them in and stay out of sight ok.’ Joyce then handed her the hot chocolate and left after grabbing her keys off the table.

After a moment El heard the sound of a car engine receding as Joyce drove away off to work. After a few minutes she had finished eating and was beginning to get bored. She didn’t know what to do, she didn’t want to damage anything but she saw a radio. It was a little bit like the ones that she’d seen at the lab but it was smaller and less intimidating, she tentatively edged towards it and pressed the little button with a power symbol on it. Almost instantly music sprung out of the little radio, it was nothing like the music Jonathan had played the evening before. It was happier she supposed and there were less loud banging noises, she liked it.

With the comforting sound of the radio in the background El wandered over to the sofa and sat back. She began to think about what would happen now she had a new home, now she was away from the lab. After a bit of hard thought, she realised she didn’t really know much about what was outside the lab, she had just sort of pretended to know what was going on because well, what else was she going to do.

Her thoughts began to shift towards Mike, it hadn’t been long since she’d last seen him but it hadn’t really felt like they’d really seen each other. He was in such a hurry the whole time and they hadn’t had a chance to really talk, or at least him talk and her listen, face to face since the school where he had told her he liked her but not as a friend, she still didn’t really know what he meant by that. Then he’d done that thing, she didn’t know what it was called but she wanted to talk to Mike about it when she saw him. He said he was coming back this evening, she couldn’t wait.

* * *

 

‘Dusty, wake up it’s time for school.’ It was his mom’s voice rudely interrupting his sleep. He groaned as he rolled out of bed tiredly pulling on his clothes and wandering to the bathroom where he brushed his teeth or at least the ones which had come through. He hated his Cleidocranial disorder, why couldn’t he just be normal he thought as he sullenly scrubbed away at his teeth.

‘bye mom’ he shouted as he hopped on his bike and set off for school hoping he wasn’t late. He propped his bike up on the rack next to Lucas and Mike’s just as the bell rang, thank god it was Mr Clarke’s class firs and he wouldn’t get to mad about him being late. He hurried to his locker anyway, grabbed his stuff and rushed into class muttering apologies to Mr Clarke as he did so.

He wasn’t really focused on the lesson, it’s not that it wasn’t interesting but he was worried about Mike. He hadn’t been himself since El had disappeared fighting the Demogorgon, that with his need to practically run out of school and cycle towards the Byers rather than his place was enough to make him worried. What worried him most was the truly miserable expression on his face, Dustin couldn’t really describe it but he needed to find out why Mike was so down.

It was a long an agonising wait until recess, the minutes bled by slowly. At some point he’d glanced at Lucas and noticed he was worried about Mike too, he kept glancing at him with a nervous expression on his face. When the bell finally came they both cornered Mike by his locker as he was putting his stuff away and Dustin bluntly asked, ‘What’s wrong, you’re looking really down. We want to help.’ he was proud of himself for that, it was probably the most sensitive thing he’d said for months.

Mike looked back at him after a moment and said ‘It’s fine guys, nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired.’

Dustin was completely unconvinced. That was the biggest steaming pile of bullshit he’d heard in ages. He decided to call Mike out on that ‘Bullshit, come on man tell us.’

‘Ok guys, it’s because I got grounded. You happy now’

‘Why’d you get grounded? I swear your mom never does that’ Lucas interjected

‘I was out late without telling her.’

‘We want the whole story man, you were just out late. I know there’s more to this story than that.’ After a moment of contemplation, he said ‘Does it have anything to do with you speeding off after school yesterday?’ after he said that Dustin knew he’d hit the mark.

Mike looked torn for a moment but then quietly said ‘Follow me.’

After a minute or two they’d ended up in a relatively secluded spot around some corner, he and Lucas both turned to Mike again with inquisitive looks on their faces and Mike relented and began to hesitantly speak. ‘El’s not gone.’ Both Lucas and Dustin gave each other slightly shocked looks at this. Mike took a steadying breath and continued to speak, he told the story of how he’d spoken to El through his supercom and then made a plan to get her to the Byers. It made sense now why he’d rushed off so fast. Finally, they found out why he was so down rather than happy El was safe because it was obvious he had a thing for her. In a way him being grounded was the reason he was so down but really it was because he couldn’t go see her.

It all made sense now, the reason Mike had seemed so happy but nervous at school yesterday. Why he had rushed off. He felt sorry for Mike and knew that he didn’t dare tell his mom what he’d actually been doing because that would probably get him in even deeper shit than he was already in and it might put El or even worse the Byers in danger. He still remembered when the soldiers had run into the school with goddamn machine guns, he had almost pissed himself when he’d seen them. That was when he’d really realised how serious this shit was.

The warning bell for lessons went off and broke him out of his thoughts, as he hurried back towards his locker to get his books for English he wished he could think of something to help Mike. He spent most of English trying to come up with ways to help Mike for the next hour all while pretending to act enthusiastic about Catcher in The Rye. He almost got caught a few times when the teacher asked him surprise questions which he had to scramble to answer but somehow, he got through the period a feeling of relief flooding his body as the bell for lunch rang.

He really could’ve done without Troy shoving his fat face into his shit today. Even with a broken arm he still managed to be a piece of shit. He walked up to Dustin in the corridor. ‘Oi freak, you and your bunch of nerds have been acting strange. Even stranger than normal. I think I need to remind you of your place.’ He said menacingly then looked around almost nervously. ‘And I don’t see your pet weirdo anywhere to protect you.’ he continued on with a leer.

Looking at Troy with his broken arm, he could clearly picture the scared face of the boy who pissed himself in the middle of the gym. The same boy who’d looked so terrified as he ran from El cradling his broken arm. Without warning a mess of emotions rose up inside him, mostly anger actually. That piece of shit had made Mike jump off the fucking quarry and threatened to cut his teeth out.

In a moment of what could be called either stupidity or bravery depending on how you looked at it, Dustin leant in close to Troy’s face as he grabbed his cast. ‘Don’t fucking threaten me or my friends again.’ He whispered angrily. ‘If you don’t leave me the fuck alone I will break your damn arm again. God knows you deserve it after the shit you’ve done.’ He finished in a louder voice.

He gave Troy a shove and walked off towards the canteen. He was a mess of nerves and exhilaration, he had no idea he could’ve done that. A small part of his brain was even saying, it might have even worked. Troy’s face when he’d left was almost ashen, a combination of shock and a bit of fear on his face. He probably wasn’t used to people standing up to him.

When he sat down next to Lucas and Mike he began to fervently tell them what had just happened. Lucas immediately began to look around for Troy fearing retribution but Mike’s reaction was surprising, a wide grin spread over his face and he said viciously ‘piece of shit deserved it. I think you should follow through with the arm threat.’ Dustin was less surprised by Mike’s reaction than he should’ve been.

When the three of them walked back towards their lockers to get their books for the next period Troy walked past, immediately he started walking faster and looked away. The anxious feeling that Troy was just going to beat him up next time he saw them finally subsided. He sat through his next class with a goofy grin plastered across his face.

When school ended he walked out of the doors towards his bike with Mike and Lucas he saw Mike’s face begin to fall into a pissed off scowl. He wished he’d thought of anything to help Mike but he’d come up blank, He couldn’t think of anything which might get him ungrounded without telling his mom about what he’d been doing. Before he could stop himself, he walked up closer to Mike and gently said ‘It’ll be fine soon, your mom will unground you before long.’

He wasn’t expecting the level of raw emotion from Mike as he said ‘It won’t be fine, I promised El I’d go and see her today and now I can’t. If I come back late again I might as well give up on any hope of being ungrounded before university.’

‘Shit, do you still have your supercom while you’re grounded?’

‘yea, why?’

‘I have an idea but I’ll need to check some things first. If things work out then I’ll speak to you.’

‘Ok, talk to you later then I guess.’

As he was cycling he moved closer to Lucas and said ‘Mike said he promised El he’d go see her but he’s grounded now so I was thinking we could go and send a message for him or something, what do you think?’

‘That’s not actually a bad idea but we need to speak to Mike about it.’ They were to late though, Mike had just turned off to his house. They’d have to wait till later and use the supercom’s.

* * *

 

Jim Hopper was having a terrible day, he had woken up with a pounding headache not helped by the all to loud screeching of his alarm. He had never been a morning person but today was on a whole new level of awful, it was worse than the morning he’d woken up after being caught by the lab and left in his cabin almost drowning in beer cans.

His boiler had broken so he had to have a cold shower in an attempt to sober up a little and his fridge had been empty save for a few cans of beer, something he could go a long time without seeing again in his current state.

He tiredly pushed open the station door and was immediately accosted by Flo ‘Honestly Jim, it was Monday night for goodness sake. Why did you feel the need to get drunk, you look terrible.’ She gave him a thoroughly disapproving look as he walked past towards his office.

He sat down heavily in his chair hoping nothing would come up that morning, preferably for him all day. His morning of lazing around in a hungover stupor was going well, at least until he started to remember exactly why he had drunk himself into oblivion the night before. He needed to speak to someone, just get his mistakes off his chest.

He needed to go speak to Joyce, she would definitely think badly of him for his decision but at least she had been there. Just maybe she would help to console him. He wasn’t optimistic but she was his best hope of someone to talk to because she knew, mostly, what had happened that week. He had to come up with some reason to get past Flo without too many questions so he could go talk.

He decided that a half truth would be best so as he walked out he pre-empted her questions by just stating in a bored voice that he was ‘checking on Joyce after the events of last week.’ And walked out. It had worked perfectly but now came the actual hard part of the day in his opinion.

He pulled up outside the store and walked in to the mercifully empty building save for the cashier he needed to speak to. He walked up to her while thinking how to open the conversation, he decided on being blunt and to the point.

‘I fucked up Joyce, I fucked up badly.’

‘What’s going on hop, do you want to talk about it?’

‘You remember when we snuck into the lab and got caught. I did something terrible so we could go get will.’

‘What do you mean hop, it can’t have been that terrible if it allowed us to get Will.’

After thinking for a moment and realising that skirting around the problem wouldn’t help he let out in a rush, ‘I sold out the girl.’

A poignant silence filled the room. Joyce suddenly looked intently at the chief and slowly said ‘What do you mean Jim.’

‘I told the lab where the girl was so we could go and get Will, I know. I fucked up big time.’

A conflicted look played over Joyce’s features for a moment then she began to speak ‘How could you do that Jim, I’m overjoyed that Will’s back but there must have been another way. She trusted us, she trusted you and she helped us find Will and you’re telling me we repaid her for that by telling the people she was escaping from where she was!’ Joyce stopped talking for a moment and a conflicted look yet again played across her face as if she was debating telling him something, it was only a moment however until she continued her tirade. ‘You must have heard what happened at the school then, how that wonderful girl whose trust you betrayed saved everyone again. This time from the creature which took Will. She destroyed the creature and then disappeared with it. She gave everything to keep the other kids safe and now she’s gone now because you sold her out.’

After she had finished speaking a guilty look flashed across her face, almost to fast to notice unless you spent your days arresting people who gave the same look whenever they spoke to him. The look that said ‘I’m not telling the truth.’ He was curious but now was definitely not the time to go into inquisitive cop mode, she could be lying out of her ass but he still deserved every word.

‘I know, what I did was wrong on about every level imaginable but I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to tell someone who actually knew who she was. I just wish there was a way I could make up for the shit I’ve done.’ He said in a defeated tone.

‘It’s going to take a lot for you to make up for something this big Jim, and the only person you can make it up to vanished while protecting a group of kids a few days ago. How about you badger the lab about her, maybe they’ll tell you something, you seem to be on good speaking terms recently.’ She said venomously. After a moment she continued with ‘You should be at work right now, shouldn’t you? Maybe I should rat you out for slacking.’

‘Thanks for hearing me out. You’re right, I have to go.’ He said as he walked slowly out of the doors and climbed sullenly back into his car then drove off. As he drove back towards the station he began to contemplate everything Joyce had said. One think kept swimming to the forefront of his mind, the guilty look Joyce had given him after her rant. He couldn’t think of anything that she would be lying about. He’d heard all about what had happened at the school. The lab had showed up, the Demogorgon had joined them, the girl had saved them and disappeared. He knew the guilty look wouldn’t have been because she felt bad for blocking him, he entirely deserved that so what was he not noticing. He mulled over what Joyce had said for a while longer, he knew something didn’t quite add up but he had no idea what it was.

When he arrived back at the station he briefly told Flo that Joyce was doing well now that Will was back and headed back towards his office. He decided that whatever Joyce may have been hiding, she was definitely right about him hounding the lab about the girl. That at least sounded like it would be helpful for the girl. He’d have to wait a little while longer before he could bother them about her because of the supposed ‘upper management changes’ they had informed him of when he had talked with them previously. He’d heard that Brenner had been attacked by the Demogorgon from the kids so he hoped they were replacing him with someone less evil or at the very least less persuasive, Brenner had been dangerously good at getting people to dance on his strings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed. Please leave kudos and comments to help me write more. If you hate something I've done to your favourite character please flame away. See you guys next time, or not. I don't care... *Morgan freeman's voice begins narrating* 'He was lying, he really wanted people to come back.'


	4. Don't Shoot The Messanger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dustin does what he can to help and Joyce doesn't know quite what to do, who should she trust; who should she tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back again. Sorry for such a long break between posts but I've been spending more time on my other work than this one. I'll still try and keep up with updating this story roughly once a week. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Dustin’s supercom answered him with the same depressing crackle of static. Even so he tried again, ‘Mike, are you there. Over’ and waited for a response. He began to think that Mike was never going to answer, that he was just going to leave his supercom go unanswered to sit in his sulk; uninterrupted for hours on end.

‘Dustin, is that you. Over.’ Finally, he had the response he was looking for. What had taken him so long? He hoped that even if Mike was feeling down, his idea would cheer him up. He was almost certain that Mike would like it, he didn’t think there was a better alternative.

‘Mike, you know you said you promised El you’d go visit her today but you can’t now you’re grounded. I was thinking that I could take a message or something. Would that help? Over.’ He was worried by the silence which followed his proclamation, what if Mike disagreed. He didn’t want to send him further into his pissed off state, that wouldn’t be useful for anyone.

‘That’s not actually a bad idea, give me some time to come up with a message and another thing, do you have any egos? Over.’

‘I think we have some. Over.’ He said tentatively, slightly thrown by the odd request.

‘Great, I’ll be back in a minute. Over.’

That gave Dustin some time to work out how he was going to get to the Byers and back before dinner. He didn’t want to consider the horror of missing dinner. While he waited, he headed to the kitchen to check if there were any egos which of course there were. It was a dilemma for him whether or not to give away his egos but in the end he guessed that helping Mike out of his bad mood was worth giving up a few of his delicious breakfast snacks.

He got back to his room and waited for a while longer till Mike then he heard his supercom crackle into life ‘Ok, can you tell El that I’m sorry I couldn’t make it then tell her I’ll be listening at seven. Thanks for this Dustin. Over and out.’

He was confused by the message, he’d though Mike would want to say more but he had his message to deliver now. He left his room and headed towards his door making sure to tell his mom he’d be back before dinner. He got on his bike and headed off in the direction of the Byers house, he didn’t expect Will’s mom to be home from work yet but he was sure she wouldn’t mind him coming round anyway.

As he reached Mirkwood he started cycling faster. Even though he knew El had got rid of the Demogorgon, she had come back so why couldn’t it come back too. He had to remind himself why he was doing this to stop him from turning back, away from the forest, away from where Will had disappeared. It took a while but eventually the Byers drive came into view.

He nervously cycled up to the door not knowing what to expect, the last time he had seen El was when she disappeared fighting the Demogorgon. He knocked loudly on the door and jumped back as after a few seconds he heard the latch draw back and the door open on its own. As he stepped inside he saw a nervous looking El sitting at the kitchen table with the radio playing softly in the background.

El looked at him for a moment then tried to look past him, ‘Mike?’ she asked.

‘He can’t come over today or probably for a while,’ a sad look appeared on her face and she appeared to be thinking of something to say, before she could speak he pressed on pulling out the box of egos as he spoke ‘He wanted me to give you this because he couldn’t come himself and I’ve also got a message from him, he said he’d be listening at seven whatever that means. He really wanted to come and he seemed really down all day at school because he got grounded.’ After seeing a flash of confusion cross her face he clarified himself, ‘That means he’s only allowed out of the house for school and nothing else.’

El gave him a look as if she kind of understood him but not really, ‘Thank you.’ she said as she took a waffle from it’s box and put it in the toaster.

Dustin awkwardly stood just inside the door not really knowing what to say to her, Mike was the only one of them who really knew how to talk to her. After a few minutes of awkward silence, he cleared his throat and said ‘I should probably leave now or I might get grounded too.’ And made a hasty exit, hopping on his bike not hearing El’s quiet goodbye.

Dustin left as the sky began to fade into evening, everything thrown into harsh shadow. He had always hated having to cycle down Mirkwood at this time before the Will incident but now… Now he was almost certain he would piss his pants if he heard an animal move in the undergrowth. In his head he just kept repeating his mantra, over and over again. I’m doing it for Mike, I’m doing it for Mike, I’m doing it for Mike. Over and over trying to drown out the sound of the wind ominously whistling through the trees, trying to ignore the ever-present itch in the middle of his back, trying to shake the feeling of being watched.

When he got home he rushed inside slamming the door. ‘Dusty, is everything alright?’ came his mom’s voice from the kitchen.

Thinking quickly, he shouted back ‘Everything’s fine mom, I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss dinner.’ As he headed quickly for his room. In his haste he missed the worried look his mom gave him.

After rushing back into his room, he picked up his supercom again and radioed for Mike, ‘Are you there. Over.’

He got a reply almost immediately, as if Mike had been sitting by his supercom just waiting for him to get back ‘I’m here, did she get the message? Is he alright? Is she…’

Dustin cut him off as he started rambling ‘You’re rambling Mike it’s fine, she got the egos, she got your message, and she’s fine. Stop worrying so much, if you need I can go back every evening so you don’t lose your mind worrying. Over.’

‘Sorry, I was just nervous. You know I talk to much when I’m nervous. I’m still in a bad mood from my mom, I’m still grounded indefinitely until I tell her what I was doing without telling her. I guess D&D is off this weekend at this rate. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow. I don’t want my mom realising I’m using the supercom or she might take that away too, then this shit would be even worse. Over and out.’

Dustin waited for a moment to give Mike a chance to switch his supercom off then said ‘Hey Lucas, you there? Over.’ After a moment he got a response.

‘Yea, I’m here. How did your plan go? Over.’

‘It went great, I think. El seemed kind of down when she found out Mike couldn’t come but she was happier than I expected when I delivered his message, I mean what kind of message is I’ll be listening at seven. Over.’

‘For god’s sake Dustin, sometimes you’re so thick. Don’t you remember how Mike told us he found El in the first place, they spoke through his supercom. I’ll be listening at seven obviously means that they can talk to each other at seven, dumbass. Over.’

‘That makes sense now, I was kind of expecting Mike to get me to deliver an essay to her. Over.’

‘If he couldn’t speak to her he probably would’ve, consider yourself lucky. You’ve got to agree with me that Mike has a massive crush on El, I mean why else would he be so down that he couldn’t see her. Over.’

‘Definitely, did I tell you about the time I caught them about to kiss in a closet. Over.’

‘Wait what! Did I hear you right Dustin, Mike about to kiss a girl? Are you sure you actually saw that? Over.’

‘I know it’s hard to believe but I opened the door and they suddenly jumped away from each other looking slightly guilty, what else could’ve been happening? Over.’

‘You make a strong case Dustin, we need to ask him about this tomorrow. If you’re right, he can’t get away without us taking the piss. It just wouldn’t be right. Over.’

Just as Dustin was about to reply he heard the call of ‘Dusty, dinner.’ Come from the kitchen.

‘Sorry Lucas, got to go. Time for dinner. Over and out.’

‘See you tomorrow. Over and out.’

* * *

 

Joyce didn’t know what she was going to do with the wanted girl in her house, she obviously wanted to help her but what was El going to do while she was at work. She wished she’d thought about something for her to do rather than just sit around all day. Joyce hoped she wouldn’t get to bored or feel abandoned all alone for the day. Still, she had promised her boss she would be on time partly to make up for the massive advance she had taken out. She definitely didn’t want to get on his bad side after he had been so kind to her. She would just have to make it up to El later.

The one thing Joyce had not been counting on having to deal with today had been hop. She had been confused when he had come in asking to speak to her in the middle of the day but the pure fury she felt after he left had been distracting for the rest of the day. How could he do something like that, the sight of the vulnerable little girl floating in that paddling pool. How could he have told the lab where she was. She knew she shouldn’t be this angry with him, he did it to get Will back and she ended up safe eventually but the thought of him… of him sitting in a room telling those monsters where she was hiding was too much for her.

It was much later on in the day when her initial fury began to subside and she started to regret the harshness of her words, he seemed torn up about the whole incident. The fact that he even told her, expecting her hate filled reaction was evidence enough of that. She hoped he wasn’t put off coming to her when he needed to talk by her reaction, after everything that has gone on recently she definitely needed someone to talk to who knew about all of this crazy business. She still couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact that just a few short days ago her darling boy was stuck in that dreadful place. She still got shivers when she thought about it, the dark, dank, cold, expanse of desolated landscape. A dystopian nightmare of the normal world filled with an unceasing rain of dust.

She hoped will would be out of hospital soon, she wanted to put all of this behind them. Sitting around in the empty store through the day gave her a lot of time to think. When Will was discharged she was definitely going to take him to do whatever he wanted, maybe one of those new films he’d been going on about for weeks; god knows he deserves it after what he’s had to deal with. Maybe she would surprise him with tickets like she had last time. She smiled at the memory of her little Will looking so happy. She couldn’t wait to visit him later.

It felt longer than usual but her shift eventually ended, she jumped in her car and set off to see Will. As much as she hated seeing him in that hospital bed looking so sickly and frail, she hated the thought of not seeing her darling boy even more. She had gone a week without seeing him, without knowing he was safe. She didn’t want to go through that again.

‘Hey honey.’ She said as she walked into his room, he was looking better than the day before and it filled her with joy.

‘Mom?’

‘I’m here, how are you feeling?’

‘Much better, do you know when I can come home?’

‘The doctors say soon, we should be getting you out of here soon.’

‘How are the rest of the party?’

It brought a smile to Joyce’s face, he was always thinking about others even when he was having a hard time. She was incredibly proud. ‘Since they were all here when you woke up I’ve only seen Mike and that was interesting to say the least. He came around with an interesting request which I’ll tell you more about when you get discharged but he came back again later and left in a hurry because he hadn’t told his mom he was going out after dark. You’ll understand much better why he was out so late when I explain everything else. The hospital isn’t quite the right place for me to go into everything.’ She hated not telling him what was going on but she didn’t dare in case anyone was listening.

‘It’s alright, but don’t forget to tell me.’ Will said with a weak smile.

As Will said that, one of the doctors came in. Owens, she thought his name was. ‘Well Mrs Byers, I assume you’re wondering when we’re releasing him.’ He said with his usual friendly voice.

‘Do you have a release date yet?’

‘We have decided that unless there are any complications you should be alright to take him home on Thursday.’ The doctor then turned to will and said with a laugh. ‘Two more nights here, think you can stand us that long?’ this made Will laugh gently.

‘That’s brilliant, what sort of time on Thursday can I pick him up?’

‘I’d say around midday.’ The smile on her face could’ve lit up the room, that was until he continued speaking. ‘But he Will have to come back for regular check-ups at the lab about once a week. We would rather be cautious than regret our inaction.’

She didn’t like it but she did agree that it was for the best. She would never be able to live with herself if something they could’ve prevented hurt her boy. He had been through far too much already. As an afterthought, she hoped El wouldn’t mind her constant visits to the lab. It hopefully wouldn’t make her feel unsafe. Doctor Owens left after this; probably back to his godforsaken lab. She was glad he hadn’t had to stay in there all this time he had been recovering even though they had managed to fill the hospital with their own doctors. Now she was finally alone with Will again she managed to put all of that out of her mind. Will was safe, Will was here, Will was coming home soon.

 ‘Only a few more days till you’re home, I think it will be a great afternoon for you…’ she said while tapping her nose conspiratorially. She was planning on getting all of Will’s friends over, let them do whatever they wanted school night be damned. She was sure it would be easy enough to convince all the other parents to allow it for Will’s sake.

‘I can’t wait, It’s so boring here. There’s nothing to do.’

‘I have one surprise for right now. You said you were bored yesterday so…’ She said as she pulled out a large pad of paper and a pack of colouring pencils from her bag.

‘Thank you!’ He said with a massive smile plastered across his face.

After a while pleasantly talking while Will drew, she looked at the clock on the wall sadly and realised she had to go. She always hated leaving Will all alone overnight in the hospital but she didn’t have a choice. She hugged Will goodbye as one of the doctors came in to tell her it was time to leave as Will needed to have his check-ups.

Joyce arrived home at six, she hoped that El was alright and she saw Jonathan’s car in the drive so she knew he was back at least. When she walked in she heard the radio on playing some innocuous pop song, it looked like she wouldn’t have to be the one to show El that there were better things than the clash. El had done that all by herself. What surprised her slightly more than the poppy tunes coming from the radio was the absence of Jonathan’s rock trying to overwhelm it, maybe El’s presence would do some good for him.

She saw El sitting at the table with Jonathan who was so absorbed in telling her something that he didn’t notice her coming in. It was a moment before El noticed her and gave her a small smile before quickly turning back to Jonathan, seeming almost as engrossed in what he was saying as he was. Joyce almost didn’t want to interrupt him but she was sure he’d want to find out how Will was as soon as possible. He jumped when he felt her hand on his shoulder, ‘I’m back, Will should be home soon. The doc says Thursday.’

‘That’s great, I can’t wait to play him my new mixtape. It’s annoying that the hospital won’t let me play music in his room.’ Joyce tried to conceal her grimace at the thought of more Clash blaring from Jonathan’s room but will seemed to actually like it so she wouldn’t complain.

She turned her attention towards El, partly to conceal her grimace but also because she had left the little girl here alone all day. ‘Have you eaten anything El?’

‘Had egos.’

‘Only egos? I’ll put some food on. Are chicken nuggets alright with everyone?’ she asked to the both of them. Jonathan seemed happy at that but El looked confused but nodded in agreement anyway. Joyce was starting to realise just how isolated the little girl had been her whole life. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll like them.’ Joyce reassured her.

She put the nuggets in the oven and sat down at the table, asking what Jonathan was so engrossed in talking about as she did so. ‘I was telling El about my photography, she wanted to know what I meant when I said that pictures could sometimes tell you more about someone than they said themselves. I was going to show her some of my photos before you came home.’

‘Don’t let me stop you, I’ll call the two of you when it’s time for dinner.’ She said with a smile. It was nice to know they were getting on so well, she hoped El and Will would get on just as well.

‘Thanks mom.’ He said as he walked off.

After seeing El disappear off after Jonathan she was reminded of her conversation with Jim earlier. Should she tell El, she was conflicted. On one hand she deserved to know what Jim had done; on the other hand, could she ruin El’s trust in those around her, what would she do if she found out Jim had sold her out. He had seemed sorry so if she didn’t tell him about El then she could give Jim a chance to make it right. She wanted to tear her hair out, why did she have to make this decision?

She wondered if Mike had come to visit yet or if he was going to turn up later. She would have to ask El later. First, she had to start planning for Thursday, trying to put the whole problem with Jim out of her mind.

She picked up the phone trying to decide which of Will’s friends to ask first. After dialling a number, she waited for the line to be picked up and hoped that her idea would go down well. ‘Claudia, I have a bit of a request for you. Will’s out of hospital on Thursday and I was hoping I could get his friends round for the night as a surprise. Would you mind Dustin staying over? I know it’s a school night and everything but it would make Will very happy.’

It took a moment but she got back a positive answer, ‘Not a problem, one night is worth Will being happy.’ Joyce was relieved that at least one person had agreed. Only two to go.

She dialled the phone again, this time calling the Sinclairs. Thankfully this went the same way as the discussion with Claudia. Only Karen left to convince. She was usually less permissive with Mike staying up late but she was sure Will coming back would be enough to convince her.

‘Hey Karren, Will’s going to be back from hospital on Thursday and I was planning to get his friends over for the night. I know it’s a school night and all but I really wanted to do something special for Will. What do you think?’ There was an ominous silence on the other end of the line save for Karen’s breathing.

‘I don’t think that is going to be possible Joyce. Mike is currently grounded because he ran off after dark for close to an hour without telling me where he was going, that he was going, and swearing his sister to secrecy. I am sure you understand why I am reluctant to repeal his punishment.’ Karen’s tone became angrier by the second as she spoke.

Joyce was slightly shocked by this, she remembered that Mike had seemed nervous when he had dropped off El. He definitely didn’t make it back in time to avoid notice. She was floored by the sheer injustice that had befallen him, he had been punished for helping El. She tried to calm herself down a little before replying ‘Do you have any idea what he might have been doing?’

‘Right now is probably not the time to talk about my suspicions, would you mind if I dropped in at the store tomorrow for a chat?’

‘No problem, Wednesday is never very busy anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She hung up while wondering why on earth the store had become the place people used to chat with her about potentially sensitive topics.

Before she had a chance to contemplate the conversation she had just had with Karen, the chicken nuggets were ready. She walked into Jonathan’s room to fetch him and El and saw them both sitting on the edge of his bed looking through some of the open shoeboxes of photos now lying on his bed. ‘Dinner’s ready you two, you can go back to looking at photos later.’

The three of them sat down around the table as she served everyone. ‘Jonathan, you know how I was planning to get all of Will’s friends over when he got out of hospital. I’ve got two parents to agree with my idea but there was a problem.’ Turning towards El, ‘I have some bad news, Mike’s mom has grounded him so I guess he hasn’t visited yet today and he probably won’t be able to for a while from the sounds of it. He also isn’t allowed to come here on Thursday when Will gets out.’

El, unlike what she would have expected, didn’t look surprised by the news. ‘Dustin told me.’

She replied which surprised Joyce. ‘Dustin came here? Why did he do that?’

‘Message from Mike.’

Joyce was impressed with Mike’s ingenuity, he wasn’t allowed to go and see El so he used his friends to send a message. ‘What did he say?’

‘listening at seven.’ El said with a large smile.

It took her a moment to work out what she meant but when she worked it out it hit her like a ton of bricks. Mike had told her how he’d talked to El when she was using her powers; if she had been impressed by Mike sending a message through Dustin, he’d found a way to talk to El and told her about it all while being grounded. She looked at the clock quickly, it was quarter to seven. ‘Do you need anything to help you?’

‘Blindfold and silence or radio.’

‘Ok, I’ll find you a blindfold and move the radio into Will’s room while you finish eating.’ She thought for a moment then headed off towards Jonathans room to get a tie, it wasn’t perfect but it would work well enough and she was sure El wouldn’t mind. After finding a suitably large tie she headed back to get the radio. It didn’t take long to move the radio to Will’s room so she sat back down at the table with some time left until El was able to talk to Mike.

‘Did you find anything to do today El?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll try to find something for you to do tomorrow, maybe find some old school books for you.’

‘Thank you.’

Joyce was glad she had offered the school books. As she spoke to El more, her lack of command over language became more apparent. She would definitely have to spend some time trying to teach her herself. ‘looking at the time, you should probably go and see Mike now.’ She said with a smile.

El smiled and quickly ran off towards Will’s room. As she sat there at the table the crackle of static filled the air and the lights gave a brief flicker, the sign of El traveling into the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed, please comment. I want to know if you guys enjoy this story or whether I should focus on my other one. I know this story is kind of slow so far but it should start getting more interesting soon.


	5. I Just Don't Understand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen Wheeler confronts people about her suspicions, she finds some things but infuriatingly cannot get everything she wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a long break, A-Levels are an absolute bitch. I can't say when I'll update next but I hope you enjoy this chapter.

It was an almost torturous wait for El, the clock slowly ticking towards seven. She couldn’t wait any longer, she turned the radio onto an empty channel and tied the tie tightly around her head; not wanting to be disturbed until she was ready to stop on her own. Darkness enveloped her, the dim ambiance of the void illuminating the flat water stretching on for what seemed to be eternity. It was comforting being here, where the bad men couldn’t find her. It had always been her escape, her personal space; or at least it had been till the appearance of the Demogorgon made her look over her shoulder constantly. It was gone now, she didn’t dare think of the alternative.

She turned her attention to Mike and then turned around, there he was. His dark hair hanging limply around his face as he lay on his bed next to his radio, looking nervously at the clock. Five more minutes felt like an eternity, she wondered if she could talk to him anyway, even if the radio wasn’t on. It couldn’t hurt to try.

‘Mike?’ it was quiet and for a moment she didn’t think it had worked. She was about to go back to her tedious wait when Mike seemed to become more alert, as if he had been snapped out of some kind of trance.

‘El? Are you there?’ he asked, almost as quietly as she had.

‘Here.’

‘Thank god, I wasn’t sure it would work again. At least this mean’s Dustin got the message to you. How was your first day at the Byers.’

‘Boring.’ It was the first thing which came into her mind.

A troubled look came over Mike’s face for a moment before he said ‘I completely forgot you didn’t have anything to do, maybe if you ask Will’s mom she’ll be able to find something to do tomorrow.’ A second passed before he said under his breath, ‘why didn’t I think of that.’

It took her a while but she struggled out ‘Not, your, fault.’ It was disjointed and that irritated her more than anything. The fact she could barely speak back to Mike. She was better than when she’d first been found in the forest but it was still terrible.

A look of confusion passed over Mike’s face, ‘You heard that?’ he sat looking curious. ‘Do you need the radio to hear me?’ he asked curiously.

‘No.’ the response was simple but it looked like a great weight off his chest. It was short lived however, the same look of worry returned as soon as it had gone.

‘So, you don’t need the radio to hear me. I wish I could hear you without the supercom.’ Then absentmindedly he said ‘Then I wouldn’t have to worry about mom taking it away.’

That sentence sent a shiver down her spine, not one of fear but of certainty. The strange feeling you get when you know something’s about to happen but you can’t do anything to stop it. That’s when she heard the creak of the door handle and saw the door swing on it’s hinges. Why did it have to happen, in came Mike’s mom. El went completely silent, not daring to move a muscle. Mike’s head whipped round in an instant and his face was covered by a guilty look, he had been caught and he knew it.

‘Michael, who were you talking to?’ she asked in an almost accusatory tone. ‘Can you not wait until school to talk to your friends?’ El didn’t like the way she said friends, it had a tone which she recognised all to well from the lab. The tone people used when they said something but they knew it wasn’t the truth. Not quite lying, she didn’t know how to describe it; almost as if she knew Mike wasn’t talking to his friends but wanted to see how he’d respond.

She looked over at Mike and knew that he didn’t recognise this tone. This was confirmed when he said ‘Dustin said he had something important to talk about.’ It was an angry tone which Mike used to reply.

El took a moment to wonder if Mike’s mom would let him off with his obvious lie, El didn’t think she would but she could always hope. She should have known by know that hope didn’t work.

It was a sickly smooth tone in which Mike’s mom replied. It reminded her all too much of Papa when he knew he was right but wanted to drag out the situation for as long as possible. She knew at this point things would end badly. ‘May I speak to Dustin then Mike, I have a message for him to pass on to his mom.’ Even Mike knew he had been caught when his mom put emphasis on Dustin’s name. A defeated look crossed his face.

‘Who were you really talking to Michael?’ She was obviously tired of the charade. ‘I want to help you, I know you’ve had a hard time recently but please… Please talk to me.’ A confused look passed over Mike’s mom’s face. She looked as if she wanted to say something but was holding it back. She was staring directly at the power switch on the radio.

Mike, however didn’t notice his mom’s change in demeanour. He was sill resolutely looking straight ahead at his feet ignoring everything. ‘Fine, I can’t tell you.’

It was as if a switch had been flipped, Mike’s mom’s face contorted into a look of fury. ‘The same answer, again. What’s so secret that you can’t even tell your own mother. You even told your sister instead of me. What’s wrong with me and not Nancy. What do I have to do for you to tell me!’

Mike looked conflicted for a moment but then his face hardened. ‘I just… I can’t tell you. Ground me again or whatever, I’m still not going to tell you.’

Mike’s mom opened her mouth as if she was about to say something then closed it again as a wave of what looked like regret passed over her face, she knew it from the lab when some of the lower level people had to do something. The face of someone who was about to do something and regretting it in the instant before, the difference here was that Mike’s mom had the choice to stop and she took it. With another look at the radio which went unnoticed by Mike, his mom left the room again.

El was sure that his mom suspected something more than she was telling Mike but she was glad he had refused to say anything, she still wasn’t sure whether she could trust his mom. She was busy wondering how much Mike’s mom knew or how much she suspected when Mike’s voice broke her from her thoughts ‘Sorry about her, she just won’t get off my back at the moment. I almost liked it better when she just didn’t care what I did.'

They kept talking for the next half hour, well, more like Mike talking and her listening but even so she enjoyed it nonetheless. It was nice knowing he was there, that he was listening to her. Out of everyone she had met after her escape, he seemed like the first person who truly cared about her. His friends really wanted her around so she could find their friend, she felt Joyce only really liked her because she helped to find Will. Mike definitely wanted her to find Will but also, he cared when she went missing. She wondered what would have happened to her if Mike hadn’t called, would she still be stuck alone in that pipe hoping that the two people she met wouldn’t betray her.

She took of the blindfold and let out a long sigh, talking to Mike for so long was exhausting. She could feel the blood coating her upper lip and a slight headache coming on; she was hungry again and needed some water, hopefully that would make her feel better.

She walked back into the kitchen without bothering to clean up her face, Joyce’s shocked face was enough to remind her of that. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Fine’ she replied. She knew Joyce was not convinced because the worried expression didn’t shift one bit.

‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can get you? Do you want some help cleaning yourself up?’

‘Hungry, thirsty.’ She said disjointedly. She hated how hard she found it to speak.

‘Ok, no problem. I’ll get you some more food while you clean yourself up. Give me a few minutes.’

She headed for the bathroom immediately, catching a glimpse of her face in the mirror made her understand Joyce’s reaction. There was a large patch of dried blood on her upper lip with a small trail down to her chin from the slow drip she hadn’t noticed while talking to Mike. She started the water running and began to rub the blood from her face, it was going to take some time.

It was a few minutes later when El walked back into the kitchen to some pieces of buttered toast on the table and a glass of milk. She gave a quick smile of thanks to Joyce before stuffing the slices of toast into her mouth like a ravenous wild animal. She felt far better after eating something; the milk helped a bit, if only to wash away the dryness the toast left behind.

The tiredness washed over her and she headed back towards the room she had woken up in this morning, Will’s room, Joyce had called it. Where would she sleep when Will came back? Maybe they would put up a blanket fort or something like that. That was her last thought as her head hit the soft pillow and she was dragged quickly into her dreams.

* * *

 

Karen had a lot to talk to Joyce about tomorrow, she had too many questions left unanswered. At this point she was tempted to ignore all the possible repercussions and ask everything on her mind. There were so many strange things happening recently that she didn’t know what to believe anymore. Will disappearing had been unexpected but on its own not that strange, that’s until you remember that he had a funeral. An honest to god funeral! Now he’s back and in hospital. They found his body for god’s sake; how can he be back after that. Then there was the strange girl with a shaved head who Mike was apparently hiding. Her Mike who had never done anything but work hard and play board games with his friends who was apparently now in danger from strange people and went out without telling her.

She had thought it couldn’t have gotten stranger than disappearing children who returned after their damn corpses had been found. Mike had a major secret which she felt would fill in so many of the gaps in her knowledge. The missing coat was one thing but there were so many things which just didn’t add up, she was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. Why had he been talking into a radio which had been switched off and the antenna down, she freely admitted that she knew very little about all the technology Mike liked but she at the very least knew that you needed the radio on and the antenna up to use it. She definitely hadn’t heard the tell-tale sound of him quickly slamming the antenna down as she came in, one she had heard many times when she had made him go to sleep on a school night.

She wanted a straight answer from someone, if Mike and Nancy were both telling him nothing then hopefully Joyce knew enough about what was going on to help her. It was her son who had gone missing, she had seemed in a strange mood when she had visited last. There was definitely the fear and worry for her son but there was something else, something she didn’t talk about but that was evidently there. It had something to do with the strange thing which had happened to Holly when she went into one of the rooms, Holly had refused to talk about it but maybe Joyce would help.

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully for Karen, she tried to put all her questions out of her mind. She definitely didn’t want to bring any of it up with Ted, he would probably just spout some of the anti-Russia propaganda and tell her to trust that the government was doing something about it. It was a mostly uneventful evening as Ted just sat and watched T.V. after eating, she remembered the past, when he would come home and try to talk to her for hours. She couldn’t deny that she missed the old Ted, he was more engaged, more caring, it was probably because he was working harder and longer now.

Bored of the T.V. and Ted’s lacklustre company she decided that it was time for bed, then at least she could read a bit more of that romance novel she had bought recently. It was a bit trashy and very cliché but she was entirely hooked. It was many hours later when she got tired enough for her to put the book down, looking at the clock it was already midnight; Ted usually came in and turned the lights off at about eleven, he had probably fallen asleep in his chair again. Karen let out a small sigh as she turned her lights off for herself, hopefully tomorrow would answer some of her questions, well actually, later today she thought humourlessly.

The next morning worked like clockwork as it had done many times before, her alarm woke her up far earlier than her children would like to get up, she took a quick shower as usual, woke up the children and made breakfast. She decided against bringing up the fact Mike was sleeping with his supercom held tightly to his chest like a comforter. It felt like no time at all before the kids and Ted had left, leaving her alone with Holly. Her daily routine stayed fairly similar throughout the morning, she cleared the washing baskets and moved all the dirty clothes into the basement next to the washing machine. It was washing day soon and she wasn’t looking forward to it; it was rare if she got through a washing day without some problem, Nancy needing a shirt she was washing, Mike leaving a pen in his pocket and staining some clothes. She had got into a habit of checking all the clothes for anything which shouldn’t be there but it always seemed to be entirely futile, there always seemed to be a stray pen or ink cartridge or even a non-colour-locked shirt to mess things up.

No matter what she did throughout the morning, she never quite took her mind off her planned chat with Joyce later. She didn’t know what information she had but Karen was certain that it was more than her. She just hoped Joyce had enough information to fill in the gaps, the holes in her knowledge which seemed to be the crucial information connecting together all the small details she had noticed. Her gaze kept anxiously flicking towards her watch. After a while one of the other differences dawned on her, how she hadn’t noticed it before was beyond her but one thing she hadn’t seen for days now was Mike’s favourite watch. He hadn’t taken it off for months then it was gone, replaced by one of his old, slightly broken ones. She hoped Joyce had some answers, anything would do.

Karen couldn’t wait any longer, at half past eleven she decided Joyce wouldn’t mind. She could even get some shopping done while she was there, she was strangely low on egos. The drive was quick and it was only a few more minutes before she was walking through the doors to the shop. Joyce, upon seeing her glanced quickly at the clock then went back to serving her customer, the only other person she could see in the shop.

It was no time at all before she was standing at the till next to Joyce, she didn’t know how to start the conversation, how does anyone start a conversation based around suspicions that your son is in contact with someone wanted by the government and that you also think the person you’re talking to knows at least something about it too. Mike’s been acting strange lately…’ she hesitated a moment, hoping that she wasn’t going to touch on to sensitive of a topic, ‘at first, I thought it was because of Will, because the two of them have been friends almost since they met but things have almost gotten stranger now that Will’s been found.’ A searching look from Joyce prompted her to continue talking, thankfully she didn’t look irritated that she had brought up Will’s disappearance. ‘The thing which I just can’t understand is that Mike now has a massive secret which he just will not reveal, he’s even gone so far as to swear his sister to secrecy. The only thing I ever get from him is that he can’t tell me, that is except for one time when he said that I wouldn’t understand. Do you have any ideas?’

Joyce’s response was far to hesitant for Karen, a non-verbal affirmation of knowledge, the knowledge which she hesitantly said she didn’t have. How was she supposed to believe Joyce when she said she had ‘no idea Mike had been acting strangely, I haven’t seen him since they found Will and even then, he either sat moodily in the waiting room not talking to anyone until he could see Will.’ The strangest part was that Joyce’s eyes, which always looked anywhere but at her face whenever she was lying. Didn’t look directly at her until after she had said she hadn’t seen Mike since the waiting room when Will was found. Her mind was moving at a mile a minute now, she was certain Joyce had seen Mike in-between Will being found and now but the question was, when? Mike had been grounded since he had gone off into the dark without telling her.

The realisation hit her like a landslide, that must have been where he went. Nancy knew roughly when he would be back and also that he would be safe, from what she could assume, he was gone for about as long as she would expect if she had sent him over to the Joyce’s to give her something then stop to talk to will or have something to eat. The only thing she didn’t know was why. She couldn’t just say straight to Joyce’s face that she thought she was lying, there had to be a better way. The jacket, the one thing which had left the house but hadn’t come back. Mike had taken two jackets with him and only brought one home so if she was right, Joyce would have seen the other one. ‘Before I go any further with the strange things Mike has been doing, I’ve noticed one of his jackets is missing. I was wondering if you had seen it, I don’t know when but I noticed it wasn’t there the other day. It’s just a regular old black waterproof but I was hoping you would have some idea.’

‘Sorry, I don’t think I’ve seen it recently. The last time I saw it was what must have been a few weeks ago at least and I’m certain he left with it, sorry. Should we get on to Mike’s suspicious activities and I’ll see if I can give my two cents.’ Joyce replied in a nonchalant tone, not realising that to Karen, she had as good as admitted to Mike coming over to her house on the night he slipped off.

‘Are you sure you haven’t seen it?’ she took a moment before continuing, time to go for broke. ‘Not even after dark on Monday when he slipped out of my house without telling me and now won’t tell me what he was doing?’

Joyce sagged, as if she was a marionette whose strings had just been cut. Her shoulders drooped and she hung her head, it was obvious that she knew she was discovered. ‘I never could lie to you could I Karen, if Mike won’t tell you then that’s his secret, not mine. Go ahead and unload your other suspicions, I’ll answer what I can without breaking anyone’s trust.’

It wasn’t ideal but at least Joyce was giving her something, a chance to maybe, just maybe find out something else. ‘Whatever it was that Mike was doing at your house I won’t ask but there are other things which I am certainly curious about. To start things off, do you know anything about the child who a bunch of government people came to my house, to warn me was dangerous. To warn me that Mike had been hiding her from the government and was in danger. She looked younger than Mike and had a shaved head, I have no idea what’s going on if I’m honest.’ She stopped herself before she went any further, she hadn’t meant so say quite so much but all of it was definitely true. She really had no idea what was going on.

‘I can tell you a little bit of what I know but the rest is a tangled web of promises I’m afraid. I have heard about the girl you’re talking about, and I know for a fact that she is not what the government agents said she was. She escaped what was essentially captivity and isolation which was enforced by them, in this story, the government are the bad guys to be cliché about it. Mike did a good thing when he helped her. I can’t tell you any more than that I’m afraid.’ For the first time in their conversation, Joyce hadn’t lied once, it was comforting and scary at the same time. Knowing that Mike hadn’t been in danger from her was a relief but knowing that the government was the actual villain of the story was terrifying.

‘There’s one other thing I just can’t understand, I can get a vague idea about where Mike went without telling me, I don’t know why but at least I know he was going somewhere safe. I would ask why Mike came to see you but that is certainly going to give me nothing. I found Mike talking into his supercom while it was turned off last night. I walked into his room and he quickly put it down but I didn’t hear the sound of him putting the antenna down which I’m sure you know from Will, is quite hard to miss but the power switch was off. He then told me he was talking to Dustin. Do you have any idea what was going on?’ The response Joyce gave her was as unexpected as she could have imagined.

Joyce stood without speaking for a moment but then, ‘I don’t think I can tell you anything about that, I know it sounds strange but I can’t shed any light for you. One question I have for you, don’t laugh this off. Did you take the radio away from him?’

‘I was tempted but no, I’m still considering it though if he keeps saying that he can’t tell me anything.’

‘You might find this strange but the one thing to do if you want him to tell you nothing is take that radio away, I can’t give you any more information about it but don’t take it away from him.’

‘Even though you lied to me earlier, I promise I won’t take it away. You’ve given me a lot to think about an I can’t say I’m happy right now but at least you told me something. I have to go now but I’ll see you soon.’

Just as she was leaving she heard Joyce’s voice call out behind her, ‘Before you go, please could you let Mike come to see Will when he gets out of hospital, at least for Will’s sake.’ She didn’t respond as she got in her car and drove away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, please leave a comment or kudos.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how long this story is going to be and I don't yet know where I want it to go but for the low, low price of Kudos and Comments I can come up with at least another chapter. I don't know when I'll have the next chapter up because of school but I'll do my best.  
> If you've finished the chapter and hate it, the comment button is right down there so feel free to flame away.


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